HRS: THE HRMS RFI Search Software

for predicting spaceborne radio interference

Developed at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology, by David R. DeBoer,
Lewis L. Roberts, and Paul G. Steffes

Over the 3 year life on the now-cancelled NASA High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS), the Geogia Tech group developed a database of all non-classified satellites and spacecraft, giving transmission frequencies and orbital parameters on each. This database was derived from a number of sources, and has been organized into two major groups. The first, GEOSAT, currently contains 551 satellites, including 241 geostationary and 310 low-earth orbiting satellites. Information included in this this database includes transmission frequencies and powers, polarizations, and coverage areas, as well as either longitudinal position, for geostationary satellites, or two-line orbital elements for non non-geostationary satellites. The second group is known as the SSDB group since it is derived from the Space Frequency Coordination Group database developed in Spain. It contains 219 govenment-owned spacecraft including those in deep space. We append to this database orbital elements allowing determination of spacecraft position.

Searches of both GEOSAT and SSDB are conducted with a top-level search system called HRMS RFI Search (HRS). HRS search parameters consist of a sky window in right ascension / declination or in azimuth / elevation and a frequency range. The observer's location, as well as the date and time (UT) of the observation are likewise entered. The spacecraft found to lie within the search space are written to an ASCII output file, along with the search parameters and the spacecraft characteristics.

HRS was last revised in June 1994, with NASA support, but future upgrades and maintenance will be supported by the SETI Institute. Significant updates are currently being conducted in support of the early 1995 deployment of Project Phoenix.

The database and search software will be made available via ftp in the near future.

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